


Time to grow together

by bluereadingdolphin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Found Family, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, No Plot/Plotless, Original Character(s), Other, Outer Space, Sort Of, Space Opera, Well there is a little but not much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27373723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluereadingdolphin/pseuds/bluereadingdolphin
Summary: Aurelia Rhodes has spent much of her life running. Taking odd jobs as a security officer, or a hired hand, she's run her way across a good strip of the galaxy. Then she takes a job on the ship oddly named CRASHES, and slowly, she finds family again, with a group of people who are all running from something too.A found family story about a squad of space-faring people!! There is very little plot but they all grow to love each other very much, and by extension so do I
Relationships: Izel (CRASHES)/Rose (CRASHES), Niamh (CRASHES)/Aurelia (CRASHES)
Kudos: 3





	1. An Introduction

“ _ Pod preparing to dock. _ ” 

A soft, genderless voice echoes through the small metal pod. The human - Aurelia - sitting in the chair stirs, opening violet eyes and shaking her head so that tightly curling pink hair fluffs around her face. She’s around average height, dark skinned, and wearing clothes in bright colours that seem washed out in the bright light of the pod. A blue cropped jacket sits over a crop top, a short pink skirt swishes around her legs, and fishnets stretch down into blue combat boots. As she rubs sleep out of her eyes, the pod silently propels itself towards the docking station of what’s to be her new home for the next year, at least. The intercom crackles on.    
“Hello?”   
“Yes, yep. I’m here, I’m awake.” She responds, voice still full of sleep. “ _ Barely _ ” She mutters to herself.    
“Oh good, glad you’re with us! I’m Rozemijn, but everyone calls me Rose. She and her pronouns.” Rose pauses for a moment as the pod makes a hissing noise while it comes closer to the ship. “Those pods are horrible to travel in, right?” She asks, to fill the awkward silence.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m pretty used to it by now.” Aurelia shrugs, before remembering that Rose can’t actually see her. 

“That’s good then. Lang and Zheng are going to operate the arm to bring you in, so be prepared for a little turbulence, but I’ll be out there to greet you, okay?” Rose’s voice is exuberant, and she seems excited. 

“Sounds good. I’m Aurelia by the way, also she and her, but I’m assuming you already knew that. Are you the captain?” Aurelia sits up properly, smoothing wrinkles out of her skirt. Making a good impression. Right, she’s got to do that.    
“Well...I think Izel is technically registered as the captain? But we don’t really have one. Niamh is the one that makes sure we actually get stuff done - but this is more of a democracy! We vote on the really important details and stuff.”

“Well that’s novel, maybe I won’t spend the whole of this year being ordered around by some asshole.” Aurelia mutters to herself, and then says aloud: “Okay! You’ll have to introduce me to the rest of the crew.”    
“Of course, that’s first on the list of to dos! We’ve got to get you settled in - you’ll have things to put in your quarters, I assume?”   
“Yes. Not much though, I travel light. Who will I be sharing with?” She’s nervous to ask this one. Aurelia likes her privacy, and sharing a room with someone has never failed to disrupt that.

“Oh, no shared rooms either! I don’t know how much you were told about our operation, but we don’t exactly run a traditional ship.”    
“Well, I’m sure this will be an interesting year. I look forward to working with you all!” She breathes a little easier now, shifting in her seat. No shared rooms, huh? Well, that’s something at least. 

The pod latches on to the main ship, and the door slowly hisses open. Aurelia grabs her single bag, as well as the restock of supplies that were sent up with her. Just inside another airlock is a tall, pale woman, who must be Rozemijn. Her blonde hair is thick, and pulled up in a ponytail. Her fringe flops over blue eyes and she’s wearing a pair of blue dungarees over a turquoise shirt.    
“Aurelia! Welcome to CRASHES!”   
“Crashes?” Aurelia responds, looking around in confusion.    
“Ah, Lang and Zheng named the ship that. It stands for Cataloging, Research, And Space History Exploration Ship. Crashes!” Everything Rose says seems to be said as though it’s the most exciting thing she’s heard all day, and it’s already exhausting.    
“That seems like it’d be bad luck. I don’t know, inviting the universe to fulfill the name, or something?”

“Well, it's not happened yet, so it’ll probably be fine, touch wood.” Rose taps the fake wood of the doorframe she’s standing in. “I’ll have Gary grab those supplies, you can leave them here, and I’ll show you to your room.”   
“It’s fine, I can carry it myself. I wouldn’t want someone to be tasked with carrying my stuff around for me.”   
“Oh don’t worry about that - Gary is our general assistance robot, but Lang and Zheng once again decided that wasn’t interesting enough so...Gary.”   
“I can certainly see that this is going to be an interesting ship to work on.” Privately, Aurelia hopes that not too many of the things here are given odd names. Remembering more things than she already has to doesn’t seem like it’ll be enjoyable.    
“It’s a strange place, but we all love it here and I’m sure you will too!” Rose sets off down the corridor, grinning brightly, and Aurelia follows her, making a vague noise of agreement. 

“Why do you have a spare room anyway? You built this ship, right? Didn’t you factor in the amount of rooms that were going to be required by the crew?”   
“The base crew has changed a lot - Niamh, Izel and I are the only three who were on the original team. When we hired Lang and Zheng - they’re twins by the way - they insisted on sharing a room so we ended up with one spare for the security person. That’s yours now!”

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense.”

The two of them lapse into silence as they traipse down a corridor. Finally, they reach a door with a blank name label on it.    
“This one's yours! Feel free to write something on the label - your name would be good but Loukas’ said ‘ _ wouldn’t you like to know ;) _ ’ on it for about half a year so I suppose anything goes. I’ll leave you to unpack for a bit - I’ll be back to pick you up and introduce you to the rest of the crew in...let's say half an hour. Sound good?”

“Yeah. That sounds fine, thank you.”   
Rose leaves, and Aurelia heads into her room.   
  
It’s simple, that’s for sure. Bed, cabinet, desk, some shelves. She should definitely have asked where the bathroom is but that’s going to have to be a problem for when Rose gets back. She takes clothes and toiletries out of her bag, and places a picture of a beautiful earthen landscape on one of the shelves. It looks a little more like hers now, albeit still rather impersonal, but when she said she travelled light she meant it. Finally, she pulls a weapons belt out of her bag, and examines the two guns attached to it. Nothing has happened to them on the journey, and she sighs in relief. She slings the belt around her waist, resting her hands on the grips. She can do this. 

So far, she’s only met Rose, but the other people on the ship are called Izel, Lang, Zheng, Niamh,  _ Gary  _ and Loukas, according to the file she received upon being hired. The fact that Gary was listed as a separate crewmate occurs to her, and she smiles in half confusion. She’s not sure what any of them do, but it seems possible that Lang and Zheng are the two mechanics. Other than that, she’s got no idea. This definitely isn’t a traditional ship - there’s no captain that everyone defers to, no deputy to shout at everyone while the captain isn’t looking, and the assistance robot is named as a member of the crew itself. It’s going to be an interesting year - but it’ll move around a lot, and that’s all she really needs.

  
  


"Aurelia? You okay in there?" Rose's voice comes in through the door, and Aurelia stands up.

"Yep, I'm good. On my way out now." When she comes to the door, Rose and a robot she assumes is Gary are standing outside. The robot is wearing a bright blue turtleneck that she decides not to ask about.

"This is Gary! You'll see him trundling around pretty often, you can ask him any questions you might have." Rose smiles, and waves down the hall. "The bridge is this way, everyone should be assembled there to meet you." Right. There's five other people she's going to have to meet, memorize the names and jobs of, and then do her best to avoid because she doesn't want to deal with that right now. Poor Rose, she's going to be stuck with her trailing around behind her for a while. 

"We've been looking forward to meeting you for a while, it's always nice to have a new member of the family, you know?" Rose continues an attempt at making conversation, and Aurelia just hums in agreement. 

"Is there a reason you need a new security officer?" She asks suddenly, overcome with a wave of mild panic at the thought of the past one having been killed on one of the strange missions this crew of people goes on. 

"Oh, it's nothing dramatic, don't worry about it. He'd been long distance with his boyfriend for a while, but he wanted to properly move in so the two of them could start a proper life together. They’re on the way to adopting a kid, I’m pretty sure. So we needed a new security person!" Oh. That's not so bad then, Aurelia thinks, exhaling a small breath.

"Here's the bridge! If you ever get lost, by the way, just holler for help. The ship AI will tell you where to go - Lang and Zheng haven't managed to get into that one yet so it's still the default model. Address it as Ada and it should be fine.” What that means, she doesn’t want to know. So she doesn’t ask, and heads into the room. 

The first thing Aurelia notices about the people inside is how brightly they're dressed. Most space dwellers wear dark fabrics, greys and blacks and navys. She's never actually liked that, which is part of the reason her hair is pink and she dresses so brightly. The first person to approach her is a fairly tall woman wearing a red hijab, yellow long sleeve and a brown skirt which brushes the floor. Her eyes are a dark brown, and creased in a happy smile.

"Welcome! I'm Izel, ship pilot! She and her pronouns for me, thank you!" Izel goes in for a hug, which Aurelia accepts with a slight flinch and then in the most awkward and stiff way she possibly could have. The next person extends a hand and gives the barest smile.

"Niamh. Navigator. She." Her tone isn't rude, but a little clipped. She appears to be wearing a leather jacket and a t-shirt over a pair of pajama bottoms, but still manages to be intimidating. She's pale, with freckles and bright green eyes that stare out from behind glasses. Her curling brown hair also has green streaks in it, which somehow adds to the intimidation factor. Aurelia shakes her hand, internally sighing. This is the kind of person she can handle perfectly well - she’s used to it enough, which is more than she can say for all these bubbly and kind people she's met so far. Respect their authority, stay out of the way, and everything will work out. 

The next person in the line struts the short distance between them. They're around the same height as her, with two different coloured eyes that sparkle brightly. One is blue and the other brown, set into a tan face with caramel hair. They're wearing a lavender blazer, an orange and white shirt, and khaki trousers. Also no socks, which strikes her as strange.

"And  _ I'm _ Loekas, the cook and resident fashion expert. He or they is fine, I'm not really bothered either way. It's a pleasure to meet you." He goes for a high five, which is definitely not what Aurelia was expecting, but she takes it.

Finally, a pair of exactly identical people comes up to her, and she groans internally. She's never going to remember which one of these is which and she's already guilty now. They've got identical haircuts - short sides and a mess of longer hair on the top. One of them is wearing a white hoodie and black trousers, and the other has the same outfit in reverse. Maybe that'll help to keep them apart, but who knows. Their brown eyes glitter with mischief, and she takes the offered hand with a certain amount of trepidation. A loud farting noise erupts from the point where their hands and she can't help but sigh. The one not holding her hand, wearing a black hoodie, falls over laughing. White hoodie grins.

"I'm Lang. Any pronouns are fine."

"Zheng, same regarding pronouns."

"We're the ship mechanics!"

"And we make life here more interesting."

"So you're welcome for that in advance."

The two of them speak so quickly Aurelia has some trouble keeping up.

"Okay….nice to meet all of you. I'm Aurelia, she and her. But I'm guessing you knew that?"

"We did, yes." Izel responds. "Regardless, it's lovely to meet you. Ignore Lang and Zheng, that's just what they're like."

After some affronted spluttering from Lang, and Zheng shrugging in agreement, the crew falls into silence.   
“You know what it’s time for? Icebreaker games!” Rose states brightly. “Everyone, let's sit in a circle and get this party going.”   
“Oh no, please. Do I have to participate? I had a map of the next planet we’re going to that I really should be looking at and…” Niamh trails off as Rose shakes her head.   
“Absolutely not, you’ve got to play with us. Doctor’s orders.”   
“That’s….not….that’s not how that works. But sure,  _ fine. _ ”

“Excellent.” Rose smiles angelically.   
Everyone grabs chairs which are scattered around the bridge. There’s some bickering over the one which appears to be in the best condition, but eventually the whole crew is sat in a circle. Well, an approximation of a circle. 

“If there’s ever a question you don’t want to answer, for whatever reason, just say ‘pass’ and we’ll skip you for that round.” Izel says, and the whole group nods. “Other than that, let’s start simple. Niamh, what’s the best planet we’ve ever visited, in your opinion?”   
“Look, I don’t  _ know. _ ” Niamh answers, but she sighs when Izel glares at her. “Fine. The first earthen colony outside of our solar system was...incredible. It was fascinating to see what happened to all of them, and why there’s nobody left now.” The rest of the crew nods in acknowledgement, and then waits expectantly. “Oh yeah, another question. Lang, what’s the thing you feel happiest with modifying?”   
“Oh Gary, for sure. He was, like,  _ super  _ boring before. It’s nice, I prefer him being a bit of a mess over the creepy way he was before. And Gary is a much better name than the acronym GAR and nothing else.” They pause, scanning the room for a second. “Okay, Loekas, what’s your least favourite thing to cook? You can say fennel because that’s a crime to vegetables.”   
“Fennel is wonderful and I’ll thank you to remember that I’m the one cooking so I can make you eat it all I want. I’m not sure, but sometimes I’m real tired and I can only be bothered to make something simple.”   
“Cop out!” Lang shoots back at him, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Fine. I don't like baking pastries. I'm a chef, not a baker, and pastry is just a nightmare." Loekas folds his arms, and Lang squints at him before shrugging.   
“Aurelia, what drew you to a space-dwelling career in the first place?” Loekas leans back in his chair to observe her answer.    
“The idea that I could be a part of something away from the corruption and scheming of the human race. Space always felt so pristine to me, because we’re all so insignificant up here, and maybe there’s hope for us all.”   
“That was a surprisingly deep answer, I picked it because it gave me a mountain of street cred.” He smiles at her, and she hesitantly smiles back.   
“Um...Rose? What do you do in your downtime? I can’t imagine people get injured  _ that _ often?” She’s nervous, but Loekas has made her get involved and now she doesn’t really have much of a choice.    
“I help Gary with the gardening a lot. I find it very therapeutic to watch something grow up from nothing. Feel free to come and help me sometime if you ever find yourself bored!” Rose scans the circle, checking for who’s asked and answered so far. “Zheng, I think you’re the last one left right?”   
“Nope, but you can ask me a question anyway.”   
“Okay...Do you and Lang ever switch hoodies and stuff just to confuse the rest of us?”   
“Oh absolutely. Generally we don’t even mention it because it’s funnier that way.” Lang and Zheng share a high five, and Zheng spins around on their chair. “Izel, you’ve not answered a question, so... How often do security people assume you know all of what’s going on because you’re technically captain?”   
“Oh. About every time we land and we have someone new, for some reason they can’t pick up on the fact that we all work together. It’s not an option to fill in on any forms and stuff either so I just...kind of don’t tell them usually. It takes too long to explain.” 

The circle continues, bouncing around the people until everyone has asked and answered a whole series of questions. Aurelia is allergic to seafood, not that that’s a huge issue in space. Rose’s favourite plant is lavender because she finds it calming, and Izel loves roses. Lang and Zheng want to make themselves a proper gaming rig on the ship one day, and Loekas wants to marry a nice guy or gal someday. Niamh becomes increasingly less compliant, but the crew does learn that she has a sister. 

Eventually, the group disperses because Loekas needs to start working on dinner, Niamh really wants to work on those maps, and Izel needs to update the autopilot. Aurelia and Rose are left in the room alone again, and Rose stands up, smiling.   
“Did you want me to give you a tour? The ship can be...confusing to get to know.”

“Sure. Sounds good to me, I don’t want to end up having to call for Ada too much. I’m sure she has other things to do.”

“Ada is long suffering and deserves better to be honest. Come on, I’ll point you to the bathroom first.”

On the trip between the mess hall and the cargo deck, Rose looks over at Aurelia, who hasn’t said anything but “okay” and “sure, thanks”

“You doing okay over there? You seem kind of absent.”   
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m, uh, fine?”   
“You don’t exactly sound convinced.”   
“I’m just...I don’t do very well in new situations. It takes a while for me to adjust. I’ll be okay, I just need a couple of days.”

“Oh, that makes sense. We can be quite a lot, sorry about that. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know, okay?”   
“Yeah. On that note, I...like to know when things are going to be happening, so if there’s a set time for things to happen, I’d super appreciate having them so I can learn the schedule.”   
“Loekas is pretty much the same, all our meals happen at the same time. Breakfast is between eight and nine, lunch is between twelve and one, dinner happens at seven thirty. You can get snacks from the kitchen anytime, Niamh has probably baked something on any given day of the week. Ada has an exercise program too, so you can do that in your room whenever. She’ll project it onto your screen there. “

“Okay, that helps me. Thank you.”   
“Lang will connect you into the comms network in a bit, you can drop by their lab at any point. You’ve got an hour until dinner, ship time, so you’ll have time."   
“Do the twins work together on everything?”   
“Some things. Well, most things. It depends, Lang is better at the comms stuff but Zheng is the person to go to if you want something from a network somewhere.” Rose shrugs. 

“I’ll make sure to stop by them. Is it the standard comms channel setup?”    
“Yes, I don’t think there’s been too much editing to that part of the ship, but it's only a matter of time. Which would make it the only thing, apart from Ada really.”   
Aurelia nods, and the two of them head further into the ship.

Aurelia stands outside of the mechanics room, taking a deep breath. Lang and Zheng have been nothing but lovely, if a little mischievous. She’s only got to ask them to link her into the comms, that’s not a huge or unreasonable request. She can do this. Aurelia raises her hand and raps it against the door.   
“Come in!” A voice comes from inside, and the door slides open.

“Uh, Rose said that I needed to come here to get my comms linked up?”   
“Yeah, I can do that for you, no problem.” The twin inside is probably Lang - or so she hopes. She hands them the earpiece she wears, and they take it. “This shouldn’t take too long, you can sit down somewhere. Aurelia scans the chairs carefully before sitting, making sure there isn’t anything there that’s going to make a farting noise when she sits down. She decides on standing anyway, while Lang fiddles with the computer. 

“That should be working now.” They hand it back over.   
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Aurelia pushes it back into her ear.   
“No problem. There’s no code names or anything, this isn’t that kind of ship.” They joke, grinning.

"Oh, that saves me coming up with one then." Aurelia answers absently. 

" _ Did you work somewhere where you needed code names? _ " Lang asks, eyes bright. 

"I mean, I had a slightly odd captain for a couple of months who insisted on it. I think I was Pinky?"

"You're just a super spy in my eyes now, that's how it is." They shrug. Aurelia smiles for the first time since she came into the room, and after a few more polite words heads back to her room.

Sitting down on her bed, she allows her eyes to close for a moment. The ship around her fades to background noise, and her mind is in the landscape pictured on her mantlepiece. She lies down, and watches the clouds skip across the sky. Maybe everything is going to be okay. Maybe this job will finally convince her to stay for longer than a year - or maybe it won't. But for now, she doesn't have to think about that, and she takes the time to be at peace.


	2. The beginnings of a friendship lie in the kitchen

A ping comes from Aurelia’s screen as she squints at some runes, referring to the code laid beside her in an attempt to decipher them. This isn't supposed to be her job, but she enjoys it, and everyone else is busy, so here she is. It has an attachment which reads  _ Cooking Schedule _ and as she opens it, Loekas’ voice comes over her earpiece.   
“Congrats! You’ve been here long enough now that we’re incorporating you into the cooking schedule.” They say, without introduction.   
“I thought you were the cook?” She blinks to refocus her vision, sitting up in her chair and looking at the schedule. She's been put down to help today.   
“I mean, yes, I am. But for some reason it’s important that we all have some kind of cooking skill, so you lot take turns helping me out occasionally.”

"The reason is in case something happens to you, or if someone gets stranded. Also it's just a good life skill." Niamh's voice comes in through the comms, crackling and far away.   
“Right. Okay.” She starts to gather papers together - it's looking like she won't have time to finish this today. “Could you not have told me about this before it was exactly my day to help?”   
“I mean I  _ could  _ have? But you know now, right? And it’s only midafternoon, it’ll be fine. Also Niamh thought her work was more important than making the schedule so….OW.” Loekas says, his tone offended.    
“I had more important things to do, and you could just have told Aurelia about this. Don’t try to pin the blame on me.” Niamh says, nearer the comms this time. "I think it's mostly Loekas' fault, he forgot to send it to you."

“Hey!" His voice is filled with mock offense, and after a few seconds of silence, he speaks again. “Look, if it’s a huge problem then I can reschedule, probably.”   
“No, it's fine." She sighs "I’ll come and help you cook. What are we making today?”   
“Lasagna. It shouldn’t be too hard, you mostly have to help me cut vegetables.”

“That’s actually within my skill set, I’m amazed. When did you need me to be over there?”

“In about an hour should do fine, but the sooner the better really.”   
“Alright, I’ll be there.” She cuts the audio link, and stands up from her chair. If she’s going to be helping to cook she’s probably not going to have time to work out later, so she’d better get on that now. 

She’s standing in the kitchen in exactly an hour, leaning back on one of the countertops while she waits for Loekas to arrive. She’s not sure what he’s been doing, but he’s never really on time to anything so it’s not exactly surprising. 

“I am here! I have arrived!” She hears as soon as she thinks this, and Loekas struts into the kitchen. “Ah, you’re already here, that’s perfect." He whirls around the kitchen for a few minutes while she watches, gathering ingredients and pans.

"Cut these!" They indicate a pile of onions, and Aurelia dutifully moves to cut them. The room is filled only with the hum of the stove top and the sounds of cutting for a few minutes, until Loekas puts on some kind of old earth classical music and the sounds of strings fills the room.

"How have you been settling in then?" Loekas asks, as Aurelia dumps a pile of onions into the pan and moves on to cutting up fake meat. 

"I think it's been good." She answers. "It usually takes me a bit to adjust to new places, so this was to be expected I suppose."

"I get that. I felt like an outsider a lot before I met these folks, so I still have some trouble fitting in places.  _ Especially  _ when I can’t judge how they’re going to act quickly enough."

"Mmm." Aurelia shuffles her feet. Loekas seems to be trying to give her something to start a conversation with, so she does her best to contribute. "I was super self conscious about how I acted for a while, with the whole trans thing, but that's better now that I'm…away."

"Oh hey, you too?" They lift their eyes from the pan for a moment, smiling at her. 

“Yeah...I put it on my application, did you all not know about that already?”   
“Niamh will have seen it, but I guess she didn’t want to out you.” They shrug.

"Oh. Well, yep, I am. Started transitioning once I was...twenty? Had to get out of a kinda bad place to begin, but since then it's gone okay."

"Bad place?” Loekas asks, and the question hangs in the air for a moment before he continues: “You don't have to go there if you don't want to, I know it’s not always something you feel like digging up."

"Uh, unsupportive family member. Haven't spoken to him in a while and I don’t want to either. It's fine now."

"I was really lucky on that front, actually, and I’m so grateful for it. My mom is lovely, I still talk to her when I can get a connection, and I visit when I’m off."

"I  _ wish.  _ Can your mom adopt me please?" Aurelia notes, raising her eyes to look at him with a slight smile and he chuckles. 

"You joke, but she will  _ basically  _ do that. Prepare for a lot of hugs, cookies and comments about how well you're doing if you ever meet her." They laugh again.

"I'd like that honestly, that sounds great." 

"Well, I suppose we're going to have to make that happen then." He winks at her and she grins back hesitantly.

Cooking feels more manageable that the seal of personal topics has been broken. There was always going to be a limit on how much they could talk about the weather, given that they were moving through space and there wasn't actually any weather. Aurelia learns the two of them actually have quite a lot in common - Loekas enjoys watching garbage t.v. shows just as much as she does, and they agree to watch one together sometime. The lasagne goes in the oven, and the two of them move to sit at dining table chairs. 

"Where's your planet of origin? I've got to know this if I'm going to have your mom adopt me." Aurelia's smile is hesitant, but Loekas grins back.

"I'm from Minerva! Pretty far out from the solar planets, but very beautiful. A lot of nice oceans out there." He sighs, lost in thought. "My mom lives in this really nice cottage on a shoreline - it looks like it should be on a postcard or something."

"Do you get to go back often?" 

"Not really. I love the crew here, and I love my job, but it does mean I move around a lot, and it's difficult to get back there sometimes. I talk to mom when the connection is good enough though, so that sort of has to do."

"Would you ever move back? I guess a benefit of me moving around so much is that I don't really have anywhere left to miss."

"I don't think I could. There's just so much to see, you know? Like all of this:" They wave a hand around themselves. "This is so big, and so wonderful, that I don't think I could ever give it up. But I still miss her, and I miss Minerva, so I suppose my opinion could change. Maybe I'll fall madly in love and not want to leave." They laugh.

"Anyway where did  _ you _ come from originally?" Loekas asks, sitting back in his chair and putting his feet on the table.

"Mars, originally." Aurelia answers. "My family isn't from there though, at least for the most part. My grandad moved there late in life with his wife, and their kids stayed there. I think my siblings stayed too, but I haven't spoken to them in...a while." She shrugs. "I always meant to get back in touch with them, but I never did for whatever reason." A pause fills the room, and she sighs. "They were all really good with using the right name and such, I feel kind of bad for abandoning them."

"Why don't you call them now then?" Loekas asks, eyes fixed on Aurelia. Her shoulders stiffen at this, and she takes a long breath in and out to release the tension.

"Well, I don't have their details, for one." The statement comes out like she's trying to tell a joke, but it sounds false. "...and I'm -" She breathes again, in and out. "...worried that they'll tell my father where I am."

"Oh." He fidgets with his hand for a moment. "Is it okay if I hug you?" He asks, and she only nods in response. They embrace for a moment, and then he pulls away.

"If you want to, I'm sure there's things Lang can do to make the call untraceable. And Zheng definitely has a way to find someone's details." Then he waits for Aurelia's response. It takes her a second, but she smiles at him.

"Nobody I've worked with recently has ever cared enough to ask that." She says. "I think I'd like that, yeah." He grins back, although a momentary flash of pity is buried beneath it. 

"We'll get on that soon then, alright? For now, I'm fairly sure the oven is going to start beeping at us so we'd better start setting the table."

It's going to take Aurelia a lot of time to call the number Zheng hands her later in the week with a mischievous smile and a request not to ask how they found it. She'll sit and stare at it, where it's pinned up in her room, and she'll type in half of the numbers and letters before she decides against it and throws her comms halfway across the room. She's going to do it eventually though, with shaking hands and Loekas sat in a chair next to her. She will cry when she hears her brother say "Aurelia?" For the first time in years, and she'll shake with relief when he promises not to say anything to their father.

But for now, she laughs at a joke Loekas made, and allows herself to deal with it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do let me know what y'all think!  
> Also leave kudos or w/e


	3. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief summary of the ship and crew, as provided by Aurelia (about two months into her stay there).

CRASHES might be the smallest ship I’ve ever worked on. I think I like it here though, it feels comfortable and lived in rather than claustrophobic. The people might be the friendliest crew I’ve ever come across too, which is definitely something going for the place. I feel a little bit like an outsider, what with being unaware of years of built up inside jokes, but I’m finding it much easier to settle in here than I usually do. Something tells me I’m going to be here for a while, and I don’t know why. I'm not sure if I like the feeling either - getting attached and settled like this is only going to make moving on that much more difficult. Usually I don’t bother getting too close to the people on these year long contracts, because I know that it’s never going to last, but...I don’t know. Something about this feels different.

There’s a lot of common space on the ship, which means that I'm almost forced to spend time with people. We have individual rooms, though, which is definitely a blessing. I don’t like sleeping in the same room as people, and I never have. The rooms have a small desk, so we can work there if we really want to, but otherwise we spend a lot of time working together in the same spaces. The dining table is regularly taken over by a suite of screens or printouts, much to Loekas' chagrin.   
  
The fact that there’s no official captain of the ship is an interesting part of life here - although it doesn't reduce the efficiency of the crew by as much as I thought it would. I suppose Izel and Niamh have the most  _ authority,  _ but neither of them are really in charge by themselves. A lot of things appear to be decided through polls - the ship AI has a program for it specifically. I like feeling like I have an input on what’s happening. You just end up going to different people for different things, rather than having to start by going to the captain first who will just end up sending you somewhere else, making everything much quicker. 

Rose is so  _ nice _ . I don’t know how she manages it. She was the first person I met, so I kind of latched onto her a bit, which I felt bad about for a while. To be honest, they’re all really nice, but Rose is constantly so, almost to a fault. She makes a very good doctor.

Izel is one of the best pilots I know or have known. Granted, that's not a very comprehensive pool, but I think it's worth something. She’s very good at poker, as I learned yesterday. Lovely too, and even though she and Rose are dating it never feels like I’m third wheeling, or that either of them gets special treatment. The two of them occasionally go off on dates by themselves, but I don't begrudge them that in the slightest.   
Lang and Zheng are quite something. They’re friendly, sure, but also really mischievous. Never harmfully so, but they manage to turn a lot of things into jokes. Almost an incredible amount, really. Zheng is more serious though, more of a writer too. Lang messes around much more, but they can be serious when the situation demands it. Both of them have a pretty good sense of when a joke is appropriate and when it’s...really not. 

I’m getting to be quite good friends with Loekas. He’s not exactly the warmest when you first meet him, but we share an interest in fashion and terrible tv, and his lasagne is amazing. He teases everyone a lot, but not in a mean way. 

Niamh is...I can’t entirely figure her out. She’s nice, but definitely the stricter one of the group. She’s cool. Definitely the most work driven of the group, although I suspect that her vehement objections to our group activities is largely a front. I've never known her to actually skip out on one of them, no matter how much she struggles.    
  
I think that will suffice as a summary of my life here. I like writing these little things before I’ve fully settled in, so that I can look back on them later. It’s a nice way to document everything, I think. I’ll write an update when I get to one year, whether I decide to stay or leave. 

The file with Aurelia's unofficial review of the ship and crew joins a folder of similar ones in her storage space. The only thing added after it will be a short note, and then the folder will be closed and locked and unnecessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what y'all think!!


	4. Part of the Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little weird, but I guess they gotta do something out in space, right?

Aurelia stands outside the main room of the ship, shuffling her feet. She’s not entirely sure what goes on in there on a Tuesday, but every Tuesday the whole ship (excluding Niamh and Loekas) gathers in the mess hall. She can hear laughing from in there, and some kind of clattering noise. Once, Izel and Rose came out left hand in hand, both of them a little teary eyed. She's very curious as to what happens in there, and Loekas only rolled their eyes and said "nerd stuff" when she asked him. So she's going inside to find out. That's a normal thing, right? To be curious about the lives of her other crew mates? She really shouldn’t be this nervous to enter a room. She sighs, shakes her head a little, and knocks. 

“Come in!” One of the twins calls from inside. She doesn't know them well enough to tell their voices apart, and either way she's not sure there is a way to tell. She's stalling now, and she pushes herself over the doorstep to find Izel, Lang, Zheng, and Rose sitting around a table with some kind of map projected onto it. Some figurines are are placed on it, and everyone aside from Zheng has a few projected sheets hanging near them. She can't see what Zheng has near them, because an old screen separates them from the rest of the table.

“Hey, I, uh. I've been curious for a while as to what you all do in here on Tuesdays, and Loekas wouldn't tell me, so I came in here to...check? To see what you were doing?"

“Oh I suppose I never did tell you about this, my apologies. We play a homebrew tabletop rpg!” Rose has swivelled her chair around to face Aurelia, who only blinks in response. Rose looks exceedingly proud of herself for remembering the name of what she's doing, and Izel nudges her with a proud look.   
“I’m sorry?” Aurelia responds. This wasn't really what she was expecting. Izel speaks up at her obvious confusion.   
“Okay, an rpg is a role playing game. The table top bit is this:" She indicates to the maps, "and the homebrew part means we came up with some of the rules ourselves. Or, well, Zheng did.

"Sure did." They smile. "I'm the person in control of the universe, I guess. This lot all plays a character within the universe I build them. It'll be easier for you to understand if you sit in on us - if you want to, that is. I'm not gonna tell you what to do with your evening." They shrug, and wait for Aurelia's response.

“Sure! I think I'd like that." She pulls up a seat on the player side of the table. "I didn’t have much better to do anyway.”

She sits with them, and watches them play. Zheng is the game master, as they said. They're currently in the process of (metaphorically) throwing goblins at the people playing. Rose plays some kind of healing class, who is only like her in terms of their occupation. The character is a hardened and grizzled dwarf, who fights just as much as she heals. Izel plays a spellcaster who has a spell prepared for every occasion and a one-liner to accompany it. As the final member of the party, Lang seems to be a tank of some sort, who avoids as much conflict as ze can and spends most of their time protecting the other party members and taking potshots at the enemy. Aurelia can follow the game, mostly, and Rose assures her that the questions she asks afterwards about how it works aren’t annoying at all. Something about leaving her own - less than mundane, but still very much human - life appeals to her, the idea of escaping to a world of fantasy where anything is possible. Well, everything within the rules. 

The third time she comes in to sit with them at their game night, there’s an extra chair at the table and an empty character sheet on the table. She’s been going every week so far, sometimes just to listen and sometimes to do her work somewhere that isn’t her room. It’s becoming a comfortable routine, like so many things on this strange, strange ship.    
“Guys?” Aurelia asks, pointing down at it. 

“Oh, I feel like it would be more fun for you to actually play with us, rather than just sitting to watch?” Zheng folds their legs up on the chair beneath them, and adjusts the screen that encompasses their notes, smiling faintly. “We could always do with more party members, four is really better than three. Niamh and Loekas don’t want to play with us, so...if you wanted to then you could?” Aurelia stands behind the chair for a moment, and then slides into it, smiling.   
“I’d love to join in, yeah. Can’t let you have all the fun.” Her smile remains, hovering around the edges of her mouth. 

“We’ve got a healer, a caster and a tank who can also heal. Ideally we need some kind of big hitter? But it’s really up to you, and there’s no strict rules as to what a party has to be made up of.” Zheng answers, then pulls a sheet of paper out of a stack behind their screen. “You can look through this - just pick some stuff that sounds cool. You and I can work out most of the details afterwards.”   
“Okay, that seems doable. I’ve got to roll dice for these bits, right?” Zheng hands her a set of iridescent dice from a bag next to them, and she gets to building this new person for her to embody.    
The first session Aurelia plays is a mess. She has to ask for rules every five minutes and she doesn’t understand what’s happened in the game previously in the slightest. Her character fumbles most of their hits, and she seems to be insistent on making checks for skills her character is exceedingly bad at. By the second time, however, she and Zheng have hashed out the way her character is going to work - she’s playing a gunslinger, because she felt the need to give something well-known to them. The character has half a backstory, which she and Zheng worked out together and she’s going to work on later in the week. A reason is conjured up for them to join the party, and the other characters fit in with them like they’re the final piece of a puzzle. Lang has apparently been keeping notes on their game, and they write her a summary of the story so far, which she reads as soon as she can. It’s still confusing, and she regularly forgets the rules, but she learns. She becomes part of something, even if it’s weekly nerd game night (as Loekas has dubbed it). Her character grows, becoming more independent and learning that their blood related family doesn’t need to define them. She feels safe there, to not be herself for a few hours, and that means so much to her. 


	5. The First Planet

The door of CRASHES slides open slowly, letting light - and a considerable amount of dust - fly in. The planet outside is a mixture of reds and oranges, swirling around each other like frozen waves. Nothing moves but the wind, and the sky is devoid of birds. The crew stands in the doorway, all of them squinting into the bright light outside (aside from Loekas, who is wearing sunglasses underneath their helmet). As their eyes adjust, spires and valleys carved out of the rock by the wind and time come into focus, outlined by golden light coming from the two suns which hang in the sky. Faintly, the shape of one of the planet’s moons floats over one of the mountains like an eye, watching the empty planet below. Another gust of wind causes the hole-riddled rock to whistle eerily, the sound smoothly slipping through the otherwise silent air.

Niamh breaks the silence, “Okay everyone, split up into your groups. Lang, Zheng, and Gary, you three are analysing rocks, atmosphere and looking for fossils. Izel, Rose and Loekas are going to be heading into the settlement. Aurelia and I, will be going with you as a secondary group, and we’ll split off from you once we arrive at the coordinates.”

The city hasn’t been lived in for a long time, that much is clear. Some buildings almost look liveable, while others are only shapes on the ground, laid in the barest hints of brick. Windows have long since shattered, and anything wooden disintegrates at the slightest touch. A main road bisects the town, and the group stops at the top of this road. Niamh silently indicates towards the left side, and Loekas silently heads off in that direction with Izel and Rose following them. Niamh turns to Aurelia, and indicates that they should sit down on a nearby wall. She hears crackling over her earpiece for a moment, then Niamh’s voice comes in.

“Okay, so I’m going to assume you don’t really know what you’re doing.”   
“Yeah, no, that’s pretty obvious.”   
“Well, I’ll take you through the basics. Don’t disturb anything you don’t have to. Take pictures of absolutely everything. There’s a camera in your helmet, but I’m guessing you know how that works, at least.” Aurelia nods. “Okay, that’s a good start. There’s a text to speech generator in there too, so you can make yourself audio notes if you need to. My specialisation is legal systems, but there’s unlikely to be anything so obvious with the state this is in. Our aim here is to find as many interesting things as possible, log them as well we can, and get  _ out. _ The radiation on this planet is far too high for the suits to protect us for very long.” Niamh looks very intently at Aurelia, who nods again.    
“That’s all clear, thank you.”

“Excellent. I will be on comms, but you can mute me or mute yourself if necessary.”

They stay close together, scanning the floor for pottery shards or pieces of technology. Occasionally one of them will point something out, but otherwise only silence and swirls of lifted sand hang between them. Eventually, Aurelia takes a deep breath and breaks it.

“Is there any particular reason I’m paired up with you for this exercise, or were they done randomly?” She asks, tentatively. That seems like a safe question, at least. 

“Would you rather be with someone else?” Niamh answers, squatting down to look at something on the floor. 

“No I - I was just wondering.” Aurelia backtracks rapidly, and she starts to drum her fingers onto the opposite arm, up and down, up and down. 

“It’s fine.” Niamh exhales, almost imperceptibly. “I’m the most experienced on the crew at this, and since it’s your first time it made sense for us to go together.” She stands again, brushing imaginary dust from her spacesuit. “I understand that I’m not always the most approachable, so I apologise for that.” Aurelia falls silent at that, wincing internally.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I was just wondering. I guess this is a good time for us to get to know each other, right?” She mouths ‘what are you  _ saying  _ to herself, and hopes that Niamh can’t see her. “I don’t know, what do other people do in these situations?” She mutters, hoping Niamh will find some way to make this less excruciatingly awkward.

“Sure, I guess.” A smile has crept it’s way into Niamh’s voice.

“Great! So, uh. What’s your favourite colour?”

“Is that where we’re starting? Okay, sure. Green.”   
“Like the green in your hair, or the green in your eyes?” Aurelia asks, then realises very quickly that that’s an odd question to ask.

“...I don’t know? The one in my hair, I suppose. I hadn’t really thought about it all that much.” Niamh laughs, and Aurelia feels her face warming up. 

“Uh, any particular reason why?” She asks, in a very obvious attempt to change the subject.

“Reminds me of nature and all that. I forget it’s there sometime when we’re all the way out there. Anyway, this shouldn’t just be you interrogating me, right? What’s  _ your  _ favourite colour?”

“I guess pink? Or maybe purple. They’re pretty femme colours, they make me feel pretty.”

“Yeah…” Niamh trails off, and then shakes her head. “Go on then, what else do you want to know about me?”

“Favourite film genre?” That’s another, normal, safe question. Right. She can stick to those.

“Documentaries? Those count, right? I like to learn about stuff I wouldn’t normally think about.”

“I’d say they do, yeah. I think mine would have to be fantasy, I just enjoy the escapism aspect. And the women with swords don't exactly hurt either.” Aurelia laughs a little, and Niamh snorts.    
“I get that." She pauses. "Did you want to ask anything else or are we sticking to favourite colours and movie genres?"

"I don't know...you ask a question!" Now it's Niamh's problem to come up with something, excellent. 

"Uh. Favourite memory?" Niamh averts her eyes slightly to look at what could be the faded remains of a frieze.

"First time I went off my home planet. And the last time I saw it, I guess. It was a really clear day, and I was boarding a shuttle out of there, finally, and I just felt so free for the first time in so long. I just remember looking out of the window at the ground getting smaller and feeling like everything might be okay, you know?" Aurelia looks out over the sandy wastes of this other red planet, which reminds her so much of her own place of birth. She doesn't know if she'll ever go back to Mars, but this feels like the closest thing she's going to manage for now.

Niamh tells her about realising she trusted herself, and the day she met Rose and Izel. When everyone gets back to the ship, they eat a meal together which Loekas and Lang made. Later, she curls up in a windowsill and stares out of the window at swirling red dust, and she feels the most at home she has in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Leave kudos or a comment if you feel like it, and have a good day!


End file.
